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Black resigned because no matter how he chose to conteniue white will be a piece up without any compensation.

After Qxc4 Black has 4 options but any of them will leave him a piece down, he can take the white Queen with eather his knight, rook, or d pawn, but then white will take the black Queen with Bxe7.

Or Black can move his Queen into safety, but then he will have lost his knight without getting anything in return.

I think one thing to notice about this puzzle is that the black Rooks are also easely taken care of if Black should have ideas about playing the knight fork Nb3, after the Queen exchange. No matter what black try he can not win a Rook , it will be a simpel rook exchange.

Frankly: 1. Re prinsallan's chessboard. Do you really play with that? It would drive me nuts.

2. Re the easy puzzle. I suppose great variety in the depth of the required combinations or sequences adds to the value of the daily item, as sitting there thinking 'surely it's more complicated than this?...No...No....No...' is part of the exercise! It's good not to know in advance whether the problem is a forced win of the traditional kind or something more pedestrian. At least for this one, I could say to myself - okay, I would play this, cannot see anything better, no matter how crazy I get, and I would be happy with the fruits it yields in a game. So it turns out there was nothing better after all. Trick question maybe!

Depends on whom you're playing. Some low-level players cannot reliably convert a minor piece advantage into a win. If you're playing one of those, you might be justified in continuing on. High-level masters such as are playing in this example can be assumed to know how to convert such an advantage reliably. My own personal rule of thumb is, if down by the equivalent of a Rook, resign.

Happypuppet: <Monday puzzles are to make us look smart--by Friday,we are dopes again,lol>

I can do them if I take my time. I can consistently do Monday through Friday; it just takes me longer as the week progresses. Some Saturdays I find after staring at it for a really long time, and I rarely get Sundays. Compared to most people here I'm a patzer at 1400.

How long do you guys tend to spend on these? The most I usually work on one is about 15 minutes, if I still don't have it I usually give up then.

vinohradska: When I saw "White to play and win", I was expecting to find a forced line to mate, not just a move that gains material. The puzzles should just say "White to play", and then it becomes part of the puzzle to figure out what that means.

With 19 ♗b4 White threatens to take the undefended Black queen. Black can meet this threat to his queen in three different ways: block the attack on his queen, capture the attacking bishop, or move the queen. <Or, instead of meeting White's threat of 20 ♗x♕, Black can create an equal or greater threat of his own (counterattack).> Black chooses this counterattacking option, playing 19 ... ♘ba5??, arguing that if White now takes his queen with 20 ♗x♕, he will reply with 20 ... ♘x♕b3, regaining the queen and forking the White rooks on a1 and c1 in the process, winning the exchange.

<But counterattacks create desperados!> White argues as follows: <"If I capture the Black queen (20 ♗x♕), Black will capture my queen (20 ... ♘x♕). So since Black is going to take my queen anyway, I might as well grab some material with it before he takes it."> This desperado thinking leads to 20 ♕xc4!, leaving White material ahead if the queens are exchanged.

Now <Black> has the desperado queen but he cannot make a useful capture (or other forcing move) with it, since 20 ... ♕x♗?? simply loses to 21 ♕x♕, leaving Black behind by a queen.

You always have to keep in mind that when you counterattack, you create desperados. <Counterattacks create desperados!>. These desperados allow for zwischenzugs (in-between moves) that would not normally occur, which makes them even more difficult to spot and hence that more dangerous.

YouRang: <NakoSonorense: one of the key pieces for this puzzle is the bishop in g2, isnt it? > Not really. White simply nabs the knight, and gets to keep that material lead whether queens are exchanged or not. In what line do you see the bishop having a key role?

notyetagm: <YouRang: <NakoSonorense: one of the key pieces for this puzzle is the bishop in g2, isnt it? > Not really. White simply nabs the knight, and gets to keep that material lead whether queens are exchanged or not. In what line do you see the bishop having a key role?>

The White g2-bishop does indeed have a key role. Initially I thought that Black's best response to 20 ♕xc4! was 20 ... dxc4 21 ♗xe7 ♘xb3, forking the White a1- and c1-rooks. In this line the knight fork regains some material for Black: he is down two pieces for a rook instead of a whole piece. But the White g2-bishop makes this line impossible by pinning of the Black d4-pawn to the a8-h1 diagonal. Then the line above would just contine 22 ♗xa8 and Black is still down a whole piece.

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